Just moments after my daughter, who is fascinated with navels, tried to lift up my shirt in the middle of the street to see my not-fundamentally good-looking bellybutton, we came across a blanket of freebies that were “looking for a good home.” One of the gifts was American Beauty, upon whose cover features the supposed navel of Mena Suvarti.

As a designer and builder of websites, I see so few sites that actually a.) reference useful information for those who make and build sites and b.) are beautifully designed. In fact, it happens probably every few months that I stumble on a site that is nice and makes nice at the same time. Here is one that I recently stumbled on — The Daily Flight.
There are a few others, including, Coudal Partners.
Speaking of inspiration, one of my new favorite artists is now at The Site at MANOVERBOARD — Tricia Keightley, whose paintings will knock your socks off and then back on again.

Boy, was I away for a few days. Coming back to the Brooklyn sweats from the sunny, cool, fully gorgeous Adirondacks is enough to make one plotz. We went to Lapland Lake for a few days of rest and restoration and it was wonderful to smell the trees, to see sunlight, walk in sandy lakes, and read without interruption. No cell phones, no television, not even a radio was flipped for 125 hours.
I had the chance to read a number of books and I’ll write more about these soon, along with other things. Sorry for the (imaginary) white spaces below.

I know it’s completely and utterly ridiculous but I’m a complete addict for Vitamin Water. It’s basically sugar water with a millionth of an ounce of vitamins and some natural coloring but it’s really good. I have no idea why I’m hooked on the $2 per bottle water except that the mothership company (Glaceau) has great marketing, the product looks and feels right, and it’s expensive so that you think it’s valuable.

I’ve been following this very odd marketing tale of GM’s lately – they have successfully, apparently, apologized for making crappy cars about ten years ago and their campaign, “The Road to Recovery” (actually, it’s the “Road to Redemption”), features a Flash website that says very little and looks okay. I’m not sure if the movie’s quality reflects the company’s new focus on “quality” but it’s a bit high-tech looking for a company that seems bent on addressing its human-like nature, its inability to get out of ruts (NPI), and its newfound sense of business adventure. I would buy a GM car, as they are looking stylish, and apparently, they run better, but I’d have to see a more “human” quality to their “road” for me to feel confident in their products.

Mark Hurst, Mr. Experience of usability consulting firm GoodExperience.com, has put together a comical website called This is Broken, where he lists individuals’ terrible or otherwise bad experiences with corporations that could care less about consumers, customers, users, end users, schmoes, shmucks, or folks like me generally. I like the idea a lot, though it reeks a bit of Consumer Reports’ “Selling It” and other Nader-esque commentaries. It’s a good read.

I’m not sure what this site has to do with either Zen or Gardening or Zen Gardens but it’s truly incredible for what it is. (Did I write about this already? I’m so tired from working all weekend.) Play with the site — notice how you can change the entire layout — not just the size of the text but the ENTIRE interface, design, and feel of the site — with a click of a link. This is all due to the incredible developments of Web standards, which are starting to rule the Web Welt.

I’ve noticed recently that professional email spammers must be hiring professional writers, at least for their Subject lines. Gone are the days when the majority of spam I received was “You’re cute xl889x” or “Urgent Needed” or my favorite, “jaynes kluz qcx l ldru.”
Nowadays, I’m receiving spam that looks like it should have come from long-lost friends (I’m sorry we lost touch to those of you who are reading this and are long-lost). For instance, today’s spam Subjects include “Please visit” and “Hey..” and my favorite, “What happened to you?”

I’m only now, after years of publishing Deckchair on the Titanic, filing for an ISSN for the website. It’s a fairly straightforward, non-electronic process. It’s worth doing because a. I like the idea of having a unique serial number attached to the content of my websites, b. it distinguishes the website from any other potentially wonderful Deckchairs on the Titanic immitators, and c. it is pan-national, applying to every country in the world at once.

Whether or not Radiohead actually stole the title of their very good, yet imperfect new album, it’s worth a few listens. There’s no doubt that Thom Yorke believes what he says about not being a thief himself. The album is a pessimistic and forlorn sound landscape painted by layers of crying vocals and guitars. There’s a bit too much anguish in it all, but I’m not one to call the kettle “black.”
But what I’m really curious about is the cover art, which looks like a modernized Philip Guston dipped in Los Angeles highway culture. (I’m writing a story in my mind about MP3s, cover art, and the loss of the visual in music so this might be a good place to start that piece.)